24 December 2013 Sophie Hannah's top 10 pageturners See Jane Run by Joy Fielding House Rules by Rachel Sontag (published in the UK as Daddy's Rules) I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella Broken Harbour by Tana French The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield Five Days by Douglas Kennedy Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran Collected Sonnets by Edna St Vincent Millay The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin
18 December 2013 Bob Stanley's 10 best music histories Love Is the Drug by John Aizlewood How The Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll by Elijah Wald Revolt Into Style by George Melly Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record by Richard Osborne Pop From The Beginning by Nik Cohn The Heart of Rock and Soul by Dave Marsh Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner England's Dreaming by Jon Savage Faking It by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor Revolution In the Head by Ian MacDonald
11 December 2013 Ewan Morrison's top 10 books about communes 1. Drop City by TC Boyle 2. Walden Two by BF Skinner 3. Various Pets Dead and Alive by Marina Lewycka 4. S: A Novel by John Updike 5. Arcadia by Lauren Groff 6. The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne 7. The Land, by many authors 8. Wild Abandon by Joe Dunthorne 9. Black Chokeberry by Martha Nelson 10. The Server by Tim Parks
04 December 2013 The top 10 books given in books 1. The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism , purported to be by Emmanuel Goldstein. From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. From Money by Martin Amis 3. The Treatise on the Steppenwolf: Not For Everyone! From Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. 4. The Son of the Wolf by Jack London. From Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. 5. Poetry collection – author(s) unspecified. From Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. 6. The Art of Seduction (author unknown) – as featured in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann 7. Hollywood Elegies by Ross 'Irish' O'Flaherty. Featured in Wise Children by Angela Carter. 8. Against Nature by Huysmans, AKA the yellow book . From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. 9. A Variety of Gothic Fiction. As featured in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. 10. Crash! by William Goldenstein, III. As featured in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend.
27 November 2013 The top 10 sports books 1. Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life by Nick Hornby 2. A Rough Ride: An Insight into Pro Cycling by Paul Kimmage 3. Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing by Don McRae 4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis 5. Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough by Duncan Hamilton 6. Endless Winter: The Inside Story of the Rugby Revolution by Stephen Jones 7. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by HG Bissinger 8. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser 9. My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach 10. Road Swing by Steve Rushin
20 November 2013 The top 10 unsinkable characters in literature 1. Teach Us to Sit Still by Tim Parks 2. Taxi! by Helen Potrebenko 3. The Sweet Girl by Annabel Lyon 4. Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger 5. Moby Jane by Gerry Gilbert 6. Bird Lovers, Backyard by Thalia Field 7. Turn: The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt 8. Mother America by Nuala Ní Chonchúir 9. Memoir by John McGahern 10. Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett
13 November 2013 The top 10 books about servants 1. Below Stairs by Margaret Powell 2. Of Carriages and Kings by Frederick Gorst 3. Curious Relations: the private lives of a fabulous family of English eccentrics by William Plomer and Anthony Butts 4. Objects of Desire: design and society since 1750 by Adrian Forty 5. The Psychology of the Servant Problem by Violet Firth 6. Bengal to Birmingham by Faizur Rasul 7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1987) 8. Domestic Service: an Enquiry by the Women's Industrial Council by CV Butler (1916) 9. The Servantless House by Randal Phillips (1923) 10. Seven Chars of Chelsea by Celia Fremlin
11 November 2013 Sam Angus's top 10 war books 1. The Silver Sword by Ian Seraillier 2. The Dolphin Crossing by Jill Paton Walsh 3. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne 4. I am David by Ann Holmes 5. The Mozart Question by Michael Morpugo 6. Carrie's War by Nina Bawden 7. I am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. Biggles Learns to Fly by WE Johns 10. The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall
06 November 2013 Dangerous Age: the best books on 18th-century London's perils 1. London in the 18th Century: a Great and Monstrous Thing by Jerry White 2. Wedlock by Wendy Moore: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match 3. Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason by Jessica Warner 4. Evelina by Fanny Burney (1778) 5. Harris's List of the Covent Garden Ladies: Sex in Georgian London by Hallie Rubenhold 6. Coram's Children by Ruth McClure 7. The Tyranny of Treatment edited by Natasha McEnroe and Robin Simon 8. The Press Gang by Nicholas Rogers 9. The Journals of James Boswell 10. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (1722)
30 October 2013 Halloween reading: Joseph D'Lacey's top 10 horror books 1. Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal Johnson 2. The Long Walk by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) 3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 4. The Ritual by Adam Nevill 5. One by Conrad Williams 6. The Function Room: The Kollection by Matt Leyshon 7. The Rats by James Herbert 8. Metamorphosis and other stories by Franz Kafka 9. Under the Skin by Michel Faber 10. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
23 October 2013 DJ Taylor's top 10 counter-factual novels 1. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken (1962) 2. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis (1975) 3. Fatherland by Robert Harris (1992) 4. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004) 5. 1941/A by Kingsley Amis (1993) 6. Autumn Manoeuvres by Melvyn Bragg (1978) 7. Brothers of the Head by Brian Aldiss (1977) 8. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2007) 9. Idlewild by Mark Lawson (1995) 10. Dominion by CJ Sansom (2012)
16 October 2013 Top 10 books for Black History month 1. King: A Critical Biography by David L Lewis 2. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby 3. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio 4. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s by Clayborne Carson 5. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom by William H Chafe 6. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy by Mary L Dudziak 7. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger 8. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North by Thomas J Sugrue 9. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations by Brian Ward 10. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E Joseph
09 October 2013 Mark Forsyth's top 10 lost words 1. Wamblecropt 2. Sprunt 3. Groke 4. Uhtceare 5. Snollygoster 6. Ultracrepidarian 7. Gongoozle 8. Snudge 9. Feague 10. Sir Richard has taken off his considering cap
02 October 2013 Charles Graeber's top 10 true crime books 1. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer 2. All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward 3. Columbine, by Dave Cullen 4. Blood and Money, by Thomas Thompson 5. The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer 6. The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy, the Shocking Inside Story, by Anne Rule 7. Homicide: a year on the Killing Streets, by David Simon 8. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry 9. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote 10. People Who Eat Darkness: the Fate of Lucie Blackman, by Richard Lloyd Parry
25 September 2013 Lisa Appignanesi's top 10 books about Paris 1. Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac 2. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire 3. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert 4. Nana by Émile Zola 5. The Ambassadors by Henry James 6. A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust 7. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 8. The autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir 9. Maigret by Georges Simenon 10. Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
18 September 2013 DW Wilson's top 10 absent fathers in literature 1. Jerry Bines in For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down by David Adams Richards 2. Harrison Church in Y by Marjorie Celona 3. Tom Bauer's absent father in Contact Sports, from Traplines by Eden Robinson 4. Annie and Suzanne Bird's missing father in Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden 5. Cal O'Mara in February by Lisa Moore 6. Eleanor Dew's deceased father in Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay 7. Jerry Potts in The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe 8. Bobby Bonaduce in The Good Body by Bill Gaston 9. Keith Corcoran in The Infinite Tides by Christian Kiefer 10. Bob Lang in The Turning by Tim Winton
11 September 2013 Tessa Hadley's top 10 short stories 1. Ward 6 by Anton Chekhov 2. Odour of Chrysanthemums by DH Lawrence 3. A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka 4. At the Bay by Katharine Mansfield 5. The Parrot by Elizabeth Bowen 6. The Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges 7. Moon Lake by Eudora Welty 8. Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer 9. Gold Watch by John McGahern 10. Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
04 September 2013 Alison MacLeod's top 10 stories about infidelity 1. Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert 2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 3. Lady with Lapdog by Anton Chekhov 4. Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence 5. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene 6. Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang 7. Asylum by Patrick McGrath 8. Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi 9. Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller 10. A Bit on the Side by William Trevor
28 August 2013 Lisa Tuttle's top 10 mould-breaking fantasy novels 1. The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll 2. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke 3. Ægypt by John Crowley 4. The Magus by John Fowles 5. Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand 6. The Course of the Heart by M John Harrison 7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 8. The Silent Land by Graham Joyce 9. The City & the City by China Miéville 10. A Traveller in Time by Allison Uttley
14 August 2013 Michael Arditti's top 10 novels about priests 1. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 2. The Warden by Anthony Trollope 3. Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal 4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 5. The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos 6. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather 7. English Passengers by Matthew Kneale 8. Silence by Shusaku Endo 9. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe 10. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
07 August 2013 Nigel Williams's top 10 books about suburbia 1. The Intellectuals and the Masses by John Carey 2. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome 3. The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith 4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith 5. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen 6. Collected Poems by John Betjeman 7. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin 8. Late Pickings by Gavin Ewart 9. The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe 10. South of the River by Blake Morrison
31 July 2013 The top 10 books about Austria-Hungary 1. Europe Transformed 1878-1919 by Norman Stone 2. The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig 3. Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 by Frederic Morton 4. Der Tod des Doppeladlers: Österreich-Ungarn und der erste Weltkrieg by Manfried Rauchensteiner (Vienna: Verlag Styria, 1993) 5. The House of Wittgenstein. A Family at War by Alexander Waugh 6. The Transylvania Trilogy (The Writing on the Wall) by Miklós Bánffy (3 vols) 7. The Origins of the War of 1914 by Luigi Albertini (translated by Isabella M. Massey (3 vols) 8. Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps 1848-1918 by István Deák 9. Die Spur führt nach Belgrad by Friedrich Würthle (Vienna: Molden, 1975) 10. Alois Musil: Wahrheitssucher in der Wüste by Karl Johannes Bauer (Vienna: Böhlau, 1989)
24 July 2013 Rachel Kushner's top 10 books about 1970s art 1. Americana by Don DeLillo 2. Six Years: the Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 by Lucy Lippard 3. The Destruction of Lower Manhattan by Danny Lyon 4. Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia, edited by Richard Hertz 5. Uncommon Places by Steven Shore 6. The Andy Warhol Diaries by Andy Warhol with Pat Hackett 7. You Are the Measure by Gordon Matta-Clark 8. Game Plan by Alighiero Boetti 9. The Collected Writings by Robert Smithson 10. Feelings Are Facts by Yvonne Rainer
19 July 2013 The top 10 inclusive children's books 1. Best Friends by Mark Chambers 2. The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith 3. One, Two, Three… Jump by Carol Thompson 4. Freddie and the Fairy by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Karen George 5. Seal Surfer by Michael Foreman 6. Mia's Magic Uncle by Lindsay MacLeod, illustrated by Stephen Lambert 7. The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne 8. A Different Life by Lois Keith 9. Whisper by Chrissie Keighery 10. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
17 July 2013 The top 10 literary works about ancestors 1. Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth 2. "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin 3. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence 4. Bleak House by Charles Dickens 5. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin 6. "The Eternity of Nature" by John Clare 7. Brief Lives by John Aubrey 8. Henry IV Part I by William Shakespeare (around 1597) 9. Chronicles by Holinshed 10. The Bible
10 July 2013 The top 10 French Revolution novels 1. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 3. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy 4. The Duel by Joseph Conrad 5. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini 6. The Glass Blowers by Daphne du Maurier 7. Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess 8. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel 9. Our Lady of the Potatoes by Duncan Sprott 10. Pure by Andrew Miller
03 July 2013 The top 10 books about disability 1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 3. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 4. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon 6. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 7. The First Man by Albert Camus 8. The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken 9. A Son of the Circus by John Irving 10. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
26 June 2013 The top 10 classic spy novels 1. The Spy; or, A Tale of the Neutral Ground by James Fenimore Cooper (1821) 2. The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service Recently Achieved by Erskine Childers (1903) 3. The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad (1907) 4. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915) 5. Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W Somerset Maugham (1928) 6. The Informer by Liam O'Flaherty (1925) 7. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (1929) 8. Wanderer by Sterling Hayden (1963) 9. The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1955) 10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré (1974)
19 June 2013 James Davies's top 10 psychiatry critiques 1. Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters 2. Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker 3. The Emperor’s New Drugs by Irving Kirsch 4. The Undiscovered Self by Carl Gustav Jung 5. Shoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton 6. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 7. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell 8. Civilisation and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud 9. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 10. DSM-III (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
12 June 2013 Andre Gerard's top 10 father memoirs 1: Father and Son by Edmund Gosse 2: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel 3: The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father, by Mary Gordon 4: There is a Season, by Patrick Lane 5: Patrimony: A True Story, by Philip Roth 6: Swing Low: A Life, by Miriam Toews 7: The Duke of Deception, by Geoffrey Wolff 8: My Father's Fortune: A Life, by Michael Frayn 9: My Two Wars, by Moritz Thomsen 10: The Measure of a Man: the Story of a Father, a Son and a Suit, by JJ Lee
29 May 2013 Wu Ming's top 10 utopias 1. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia by Fredric Jameson 2. Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick 3. Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane 4. No Picnic on Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi 5. Timeless Earth by Peter Kolosimo 6. Spaceships in Prehistory by Peter Kolosimo 7. Not of this World by Peter Kolosimo 8. Brothers of Infinity by Peter Kolosimo 9. The Gernsback Continuum by William Gibson 10. Breckenridge and the Continuum by Robert Silverberg
22 May 2013 Kate Clanchy's top 10 coming-of-age novels 1. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot 2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 3. My Ántonia by Willa Cather 4. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh 5. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford 6. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 7. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter 8. Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido 9. The Fall of Kelvin Walker by Alasdair Gray 10. How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
15 May 2013 Ben Fountain's top 10 books about Haiti 1. Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War by Mark Danner 2. Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti; photography and oral histories by Leah Gordon; commentary by Don Cosentino, Madison Smartt Bell, Richard Fleming, and others 3. Hadriana of All My Dreams by René Depestre 4. "Lecture On Haiti" by Frederick Douglass, delivered at the World's Fair in Chicago, January 2, 1893 5. Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren 6. Nan Dòmi: Le Récit d'une Initiation Vodou by Mimerose Beaubrun 7. All Souls' Rising, Master of the Crossroads, and The Stone That the Builder Refused, all by Madison Smartt Bell 8. The Rainy Season and Farewell, Fred Voodoo, both by Amy Wilentz 9. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, edited by Don Cosentino 10. Island Possessed by Katherine Dunham
08 May 2013 Rory MacLean's top 10 books on Burma 1. 'A Hanging' by George Orwell 2. The Burman: His Life and Notions by Sir George Scott 3. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh 4. Golden Earth: Travels in Burma by Norman Lewis 5. From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe 6. Burmese Chronicles by Guy Delisle 7. Freedom from Fear and Other Writings by Aung San Suu Kyi 8. The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma by Thant Myint-U 9. Zargana 10. Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets, edited by ko ko thett and James Byrne
26 April 2013 Leo Hollis's top 10 books about cities 1. The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Stephen Mitchell 2. On Architecture, by Vitruvius 3. Survey of London, by John Stow 4. Night Walks, by Charles Dickens 5. Looking Backward 2000-1887, by Edward Bellamy 6. The Arcades Project, by Walter Benjamin 7. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs 8. The Right to the City, by Henri Lefebvre 9. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo 10. Open City, by Teju Cole
10 April 2013 Helen Humphreys' top 10 books on grieving 1. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 2. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart 3. Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert 4. Donal Og by Anonymous, translated from the Gaelic by Lady Augusta Gregory 5. Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 6. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews 7. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis 8. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 9. A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir 10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
03 April 2013 Kate Worsley's top 10 East Anglian tales 1. Tour Through the Eastern Counties by Daniel Defoe 2. 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by MR James 3. The Rector's Daughter by FM Mayor 4. Corduroy by Adrian Bell 5. Sailing Fishermen by Colin Elliott 6. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill 7. GBH by Ted Lewis 8. A Summer Tide by Tony Peake 9. Waterlog by Roger Deakin 10. Worth by Jon Cantor
27 March 2013 William Dalrymple's top 10 books on Afghanistan 1. The Baburnama by Babur 2. Poems from the Divan of Khushal Khan Khattak 3. Charles Masson of Afghanistan: Explorer, Archaeologist, Numismatist and Intelligence Agent by Gordon Whitteridge 4. Travels into Bokhara: A Journey up the Indus to Lahore and Journey to Cabool, Tartary & Persia by Alexander Burnes 5. A Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan 1841-2 by Florentia Sale 6. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron 7. The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright 8. Taliban and Descent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid 9. Poetry of the Taliban by Alex Strick Van Linschoten 10. Cables from Kabul by Sherard Cowper-Coles
20 March 2013 Sam Mills' top 10 fictional sex changes 1. Orlando by Virginia Woolf 2. Metamorphoses by Ovid 3. Cock & Bull by Will Self 4. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 5. Myra Brekinridge by Gore Vidal 6. The Breast by Philip Roth 7. The World's Wife by Carol Ann-Duffy 8. Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier 9. The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter 10. Season of the Witch by Jean Marie Stine
13 March 2013 Manil Suri's top 10 books about Mumbai 1. The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie 2. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta 3. Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra 4. Serious Men by Manu Joseph 5. The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux 6. Bombay, Meri Jaan: Writings On Mumbai, ed Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernandes 7. Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil 8. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry 9. No God in Sight by Altaf Tyrewala 10. Bombay to Mumbai: Changing Perspectives, ed Pauline Rohatgi, Pheroza Godrej and Rahul Mehrotra
06 March 2013 Lynn Shepherd's top 10 fictional drownings 1. Ophelia in Hamlet 2. Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss 3. Eustacia Vye in The Return of the Native 4. James Steerforth in David Copperfield 5. Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick 6. Camille in Thérèse Raquin 7. Henleigh Grandcourt in Daniel Deronda 8. Jack Stapleton in The Hound of the Baskervilles 9. Rosanna Spearman in The Moonstone 10. Monsieur Paul in Villette
27 February 2013 Nicholas Royle's top 10 first novels 1. Pharricide by Vincent De Swarte 2. Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson 3. The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt 4. The Horned Man by James Lasdun 5. A Dandy in Aspic by Derek Marlowe 6. The Lighthouse by Alison Moore 7. Mystery Story by David Pirie 8. Vault by David Rose 9. Quilt by Nicholas Royle 10. The Tenant by Roland Topor
13 February 2013 Valentine's Day reading: Dan Rhodes's top 10 marriage tales 1. The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford 2. Page After Page by Tim Page 3. The Man Who Went Into the West by Byron Rogers 4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 5. The Guinness Book of Hit Singles 6. Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards 7. Bright Lights Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA by Carl Magnus Palm 8. The Bible 9. Grifter's Game by Lawrence Block 10. "From the Diary of a Violent-Tempered Man" by Anton Chekhov
06 February 2013 Howard Goodall's top 10 music books 1. Music: A very short introduction by Nicholas Cook [OUP 1998] 2. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein [OUP 1976] 3. This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin [Atlantic Books 2007] 4. Roots of the Classical by Peter Van der Merwe [OUP 2004] 5. Origins of the Popular Style by Peter Van der Merwe [OUP 1989] 6. The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and their Audiences by Tim Blanning [Allen Lane 2008] 7. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties by Ian Macdonald [Pimlico 1995] 8. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Classical Music … but were afraid to ask by Darren Henley and Sam Jackson [Elliott Thompson 2012] 9. The Muse and the Fashion: being a defence of the foundations of the art of music by Nikolai Medtner, trans Alfred J Swan [Haverford College Bookstore 1951] 10. The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross [4th Estate 2007]
23 January 2013 Sheila Heti's top 10 books that began as speech 1. I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews edited by Kenneth Goldsmith 2. Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel 3. US: Americans Talk About Love edited by John Bowe 4. I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman 5. Chernobyl Prayer (Voices from Chernobyl) by Svetlana Alexievich 6. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 7. It Chooses You by Miranda July 8. Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin by Kenny Shopsin and Carolynn Carreno 9. Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Conversations with Robert Irwin by Lawrence Weschler 10. Soliloquy by Kenneth Goldsmith
16 January 2013 Peter Murphy's top 10 literary preachers 1. Harry Powell from Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb 2. Hazel Motes from Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor 3. Jeremiah's grandfather from The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things by JT LRoy 4. Father Mapple from Moby Dick by Herman Melville 5. Jerry Lee Lewis from Hellfire by Nick Tosches 6. Abie Poe from And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave 7. Arthur Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 8. Judge Holden from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 9. GM Dark from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury 10. Father Arnall from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
09 January 2013 Platform's top 10 journeys on the Oil Road 1. The Odyssey 2. Blood and Oil in the Orient by Essad Bey 3. The Region of the Eternal Fire: An Account of a Journey to the Petroleum Region of the Caspian in 1883 by Charles Marvin 4. Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills by Latife Tekin 5. Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris 6. Al-Rihla (The Journey) by Ibn Battuta 7. The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea by Steve Levine 8. Pipe Dreams by Rena Effendi 9. The Seventh Man by John Berger and Jean Mohr 10. Energy 2020: European Commission report (PDF here)